An old 45 that must have been bouncing around in that Easter basket—I’m not sure if I have any Tony Bennett albums—there are so many!—I’ve never gotten a handle on which are the best—but I did see him live, once, years ago, in an old theater in Portland—and it was a great show. It feels like a big deal to have seen him live (never saw Sinatra live, or the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Mott the Hoople, or Elton John). This is a record that’s so scratchy, I’d highly recommend it for a scratchy record effect in a movie (you can fake those things, but faked things are never as good). “No One Will Ever Know” was, I guess, a country hit, recorded by everyone and his/her cousin, but here, with an orchestra and strings, it sounds like a Tony Bennett song. With that title, if it had been, say… a Dean Martin song, you might think the “no one” in question was her husband—but this isn’t that kind of song—and the sentiment is that he’s got a broken heart and and no one will know that he was in love with his true love (at least, of course, until this song comes out, and then it’ll be quite obvious—at least to those who know who the “you” in the song is).

The song on the other side, “I’m The King OF Broken Hearts,” is another proclamation of a broken heart, this time beating to death the whole royalty metaphor—even to the extent of beginning and ending the song with a corny horn fanfare, which is just annoying. A similar title could have a very different sentiment if it was by, say, a cad, a ladies’ man—running around, breaking hearts. But this song is about a guy whose heart has been broken, so technically it should be singular. I guess he’s so sad he doesn’t stop to think about that, or how dumb the royal theme is (“my castle’s a room where each night I’m alone.”) I guess once you establish that as the song’s game, there’s nowhere much else you can go with it, and you end up getting lines like: “the scarf that you left is now my royal cloak.” It’s pretty bad, but still, I like hearing Tony’s voice. I’d probably enjoy hearing him sing “Hotel California.” That was a joke, but he has sang so many songs, it could exist! I’m not going to look it up, though, because I don’t feel like revising these last few sentences.